New York Mets manager Terry Collins had seen enough of the feeble swings and zeroes on the scoreboard.
Before his team played the Los Angeles Dodgers on July 25, he told his assembled group in the clubhouse, “Whoever is swinging the bat (well) is going to play. It’s about scoring runs right now.”
On cue, the Mets hammered out an improbable 21 hits and won, 15-2.
Managing is not always so magical and no one is calling the offence the Menacing Mets, yet. But the rare, lopsided victory touched off a 9-2 run that has pushed the team into first place past the big National League East favourites, the Washington Nationals, who have not been the convincing dynamo most pundits predicted.
When the season began, the Nats celebrated pitching rotation was the envy of baseball, having added the most coveted free agent on the market, right-hander Max Scherzer.
As the pennant race heats up, it is the Mets much younger staff of hard-throwing strikeout artists that really impress everyone from casual fans to insiders.
One unidentified scout told ESPN’s Jayson Stark he would rather have the Mets starting rotation right now, as well as the future.
Hard to argue.
Last season’s Rookie of the Year, Jacob deGrom, 27, has graduated into Cy Young Award conversations, with a 10-6 record and a 2.09 earned run average.
Matt Harvey, 26, has rebounded from Tommy John (elbow) surgery to post typically solid, 10-7, 2.76 numbers. This season’s ROY candidate Noah Syndergaard is 6-5, with a 2.66 ERA, and recent call-up Steven Matz went 2-0, 1.32 before straining a muscle. He is hoping to return in early September.
The parade does not seem to end. Another rising mainstay, Zack Wheeler, 25, joined the Tommy John club just before the season began. When any of them throw, the radar gun lights at 95mph and rises.
If the Mets do make the postseason, they will bring the scariest collection of starting pitchers to the party.
The offence, not so much. Only the Miami Marlins and Chicago White Sox have scored fewer runs than the Mets.
First baseman Lucas Duda, with 21 home runs and 53 runs batted in, is the closest thing to dangerous. Mostly the Mets slap the ball around, hope to score three or four runs, get seven shut-down innings from a starter, and see if the deep bullpen, anchored by closer Jeurys Familia, can hold on.
The Mets have been among the more active buying teams in the trade season, trying to jump start the offence by grabbing streaky, veteran hitters Yoenis Cespedes, Kelly Johnson and Juan Uribe.
Elder statesman Curtis Granderson, 34, has had a solid year (17 homers, 41 RBI). But it is a bad sign when your power-challenged team cannot run, either. The greying outfielder is the team’s stolen base leader, with just nine.
The young arms do not just pitch brilliantly because they can, it is because they have to.
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